


measured

by twofrontteethstillcrooked



Series: measured [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Future Fic, M/M, Part one of...something, Survior's guilt is real y'all, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 21:20:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7480518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofrontteethstillcrooked/pseuds/twofrontteethstillcrooked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Finn knew himself. He didn't want to think about the scent of burning or burned villages, Rey sprawled unconscious in snow, the healed wound on his back. The thin lumpy mattress when he was four. The taste of stale water when he was thirteen and practically dehydrated, new grappling blisters on his palms; Phasma's cold, proud praise, metallic and lethal, when he was twenty. His Order friends, all gone now, one way or another.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>So maybe, he thought, standing in his tiny room and stretching, you've been thinking about Poe as a diversion. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	measured

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through tfa and deleted scenes, but this is pretty obviously a pure canon-era au after that. :)
> 
> Massive thank you to [clenster](http://archiveofourown.org/users/clenster/pseuds/clenster) for mega helpful awesomeness.

___________________________________________________

They found the remnants fewer than five miles into the forest, healthy purple foliage giving way to scorched blackness, a void smelling of ash. As they neared the fire's origin the air was damp, unstirred. Nothing wild or unexpected rustled leaves in bent branches nor slithered through crumbly underbrush; the monsters had already fled.

The pall was suffocating. Finn could hear Poe's and his own breathing and little else.

The few houses left -- shacks, really -- were mere outlines of walls and roofs and front stoops or back porches, crooked slashes sketched in charcoal on desiccated paper. The smell was inescapable. No sign of life seemed to exist here. Finn took a deep breath through his mouth and tried to be grateful for the absence of corpses in the ruins.

"Someone must have buried," Poe said. Finn concurred with this incomplete observation.

The temperature here at the center was cool but not cold. Finn's new gear was lighter than his old Order attire, heavier than the worn fatigues he'd been training in back at base. He felt clammy and chilled but picking his way along the rim of the burn, where the fire had reached high into the enormous and spindly limbs of the trees, he sensed heat flaring, a blast like that from the barrel of a flametrooper's incinerator.

He stepped backwards, fast, and tripped on a gnarled root. 

His vision was full of flames reflected in a woman's eyes, her young face a shocked mask. She was afraid of him, he could not pull the trigger, she vanished. 

He was gulping air. The ground beneath him was mud, not sand. The memory had been a trick: the fire had been behind her; she had held a bundle under her arm, and her eyes were more determined than afraid. 

His heartbeat in his ears found its way to his stomach and he closed his eyes to keep from throwing up. When he opened them, he saw Poe beginning to walk towards him. He heard a crisp sound. 

Poe stopped and examined the bottom of his boot. "Boski scarab. Or an insect like it."

Finn thought Poe had gone very pale. "Is that significant?"

"We need to get out of here." Poe was marching back to the path they'd taken to find the site.

"Wait, wait." Finn raced up to grab his elbow. The expression on Poe's face made him let go. "Don't we have evidence to collect?"

Poe inhaled like he'd been punched; his eyes weren't focused on anything. He looked at Finn finally as if to compose himself by his presence.

"We'll log what we've seen," Poe said. Every word seemed to be the strenuous result of Poe holding back his own desire to vomit.

Finn forced himself out of the mood by thinking how he'd relay it to Rey: It was that kinda trip -- everyone wanted to puke but we held it together. Real success, that. Pros all the way.

Poe had the smallest smile at the corner of his mouth.

"What?" Finn said.

"Nothing. We need to go." 

Poe's coloring looked better. Finn felt an unreasonable amount of relief about it. The more distance they covered trudging to the freighter, the more relieved he felt.

"It couldn't have happened more than a week ago," Poe said when they were halfway back to base. 

"Could as easily have been a trap." Not that it not being a trap was anything to celebrate.

"The attack was way more recent than the intel insinuated."

"The scent," Finn said. "But also the scarab?"

Poe nodded. "Don't know if they're picky about their meals."

Finn suppressed a shudder. "We should have searched for the villagers' graves."

Poe didn't respond right away. When he did, it was in a low voice. "We should have."

Finn looked over. Poe, in profile, seemed wholly unaffected except for his jaw, set like he was trying to keep from screaming. Finn folded his hands together to keep from tracing that tensed muscle with his thumb. 

Don't think about any of it, he told himself. Breathe. 

The rest of the flight home was mostly silent.

 

___________________________________________________

Admiral Statura, making a rare out-of-uniform appearance, debriefed them. Nothing they told him appeared to be a shock.

"Two more attacks reported since you left," Statura said. His frown carved a line between his eyes that made him look more tired than usual. 

"Fuck," Finn said. Statura was entering notes in his datapad and gave a small snort of agreement. "Where to next?"

"Eat. Refresh. Rest," Statura said. "We meet with the General oh-five-hundred."

Finn and Poe's respective datapads dinged one after the other to indicate all updates were available. The size of the last file was wearyingly large.

"I know," Statura said in response to Finn's sigh. "Don't worry. Combat's days away at worst."

While Poe shook his head Finn arched an eyebrow at Statura. "You think I'm itching for a fight?" he asked a little loudly.

"I do." The smile made Statura look less tired. "We're counting on it, in fact."

Finn looked at Poe. 

"I'm all for you kicking Snoke's ass," Poe told him.

"What're you gonna be doing, huh, Commander Universe's Best Pilot? Sitting it out down here a galaxy away, having a rationsnack and placing bets?" He nudged Poe's shoulder with his.

"Ahem, that's _my_ job," Statura said. The sigh that followed was less theatrical than Finn's had been. "But seriously. What's coming is going to be sooner rather than later."

"We're aware," Poe said, scratching his earlobe. 

"I have no more details for you." Statura's delivery was drier than a desert.

"We're aware," Finn said. 

'Soon' was the watchword of the day, every day. But a dearth of definitive plans, fractious infighting (or so was the scuttlebutt), and a variety of scrapped strategies meant the Resistance was mostly snooping and sifting, gathering data and supplies and begging for allies. Finn could be patient, but he didn't like being patient.

"Until oh-five-hundred, then," Statura said, before dashing off in the direction of whoever had bellowed for him across the room.

"Speaking of eating," Finn said to Poe, "wanna grab dinner from the mess?"

Poe was averting his eyes. "Maybe after cleaning up."

A bowl of something spicy would be welcome. "I'm starving," Finn said, even though it was one of those phrases people didn't mean literally and sort of irked him to use -- he'd seen starvation before, knew its tortures.

Poe was pointed in his not-looking at him. 

"I could wait," Finn volunteered.

Poe stood, arms loaded with his kit, datapad, and rumpled jacket. "Nah, go ahead, I'll catch you later."

 

___________________________________________________

Finn could measure his life, he thought in an hour, by things he didn't say to Poe. It made his stomach cramp to think of it like that. (It might have been a mistake to have added all that dried firebud to his soup.) Shucking off his boots in his room, he thought about something that had happened a few weeks back.

"You must be old friends," the cook Nara had said, and Finn had nodded, happy to confirm it.

He didn't think to stop looking across the tarmac for a second more. "Yes," he said finally, glad to know his skin would not easily show a blush.

Nara grinned. "I hear tales about you two, you know, many tales."

She was a new addition to the mess staff, and the outsized iris of her eye changed from ochre to azure as she too turned back to his focal point. Poe in his searing-orange flightsuit, looking impossibly capable while kneeling to examine his landing gear, was probably clear enough to Nara's sight she could count the pores on his nose. Finn hadn't said anything else; the siren had sounded and everyone snapped to their tasks. 

Sitting on the sill of his minuscule transparisteel he sorted through dubious laundry. He and Poe weren't _old_ friends, not by any normal application of the phrase. What he had turned over and over more than once was that other people saw it, and didn't question it. Whatever it was. Loyalty and friendly admiration weren't precisely the sum of what he felt for Poe. 

Finn knew himself. He didn't want to think about the scent of burning or burned villages, Rey sprawled unconscious in snow, the healed wound on his back. The thin lumpy mattress when he was four. The taste of stale water when he was thirteen and practically dehydrated, new grappling blisters on his palms; Phasma's cold, proud praise, metallic and lethal, when he was twenty. His Order friends, all gone now, one way or another.

So maybe, he thought, standing up in his tiny room and stretching, you've been thinking about Poe as a diversion. 

"You have a right to be frightened, disgusted, and angry, Finn," Poe said once after a notably bad day of drills in a deluge, with news of mysterious casualties trickling into camp like a virus. 

Finn hadn't responded, thinking about how much he despised, sometimes, the look on everyone's face when he spoke about the First Order, as though his biggest gripe was that the Order had been personally mean to him, a bunch of bullying children on a playground; or, worse, as though his life up until he and Poe broke out of the Finalizer had been one long, irredeemable nightmare no normal person could ever recover from. 

Poe must have seen something cross his face, because he'd said, somewhat quickly, "No offense, but you're the least pitiful person I've ever met. Doesn't mean you don't have a right to grieve."

Finn had known all that, but it was nice to have somebody else say it out loud.

Grieving wasn't an act he could let himself slow down to undertake. 

But still: when he patted with hesitant fingertips the corner of any memory of Poe, including that day in the bitter downpour, Finn's stomach swooped and his cheeks burned. 

Poe's enthusiasm for anything that would annihilate the First Order, regardless of how personally dangerous, as long as it didn't hurt the wrong people. His easy laughter with friends. His and Rey's shared joy in cuisines from everywhere, whatever you got, have you tried this pingpear frezgel, Finn, it is delicious. Poe's eyes the first seconds after he'd met Finn; the second time they met, each astoundingly alive; the first time Finn stood on his own two feet unaided during the long rehab; when Finn officially declared he was staying with the Resistance; and a hundred times since, when Finn hadn't quite known whether or not Poe knew he was being seen.

Poe not looking at him earlier.

Whatever he felt, Finn had to concede, was larger than oath or duty or fondness. Was more than a distraction. However much he tried to stop thinking about it-- 

His datapad dinged: a reminder about the next meeting popped up. Finn swiped it away. How many middling, vague, dodgy, and/or woeful assignments would the Resistance send them on before there was a detailed course of action? Finn feared the answer would not be forthcoming at oh-five-hundred. 

His mind remained stuck. Whether he should have been thinking about Poe or not, he was.

He tolerated a lukewarm sanistream, reminding himself every single part of the base was a luxury of sorts compared to what he'd grown up with. Afterwards, he sent mail to Rey, leaving out any mention of vomit, and retrieved a message from her. (Cryptically, she'd asked if he liked fried gorg legs.) He sent an inquiry to General Organa; her whip-fast response was heartening. He brushed his teeth and, estimating enough time had passed, snuck a peek out his door. 

 

___________________________________________________

BB-8 rolled away from Poe's three doors down. Poe answered Finn's knock a minute later with a normal-sounding "Come in."

"Brought you an apple," Finn said, walking in. He sat the mottled turquoise fruit on the bedside shelf beside a wiggly water-purifying plant and a box of old holovid sticks.

"Ah, thanks."

Poe was struggling to put on a sock that didn't match the one on his other foot. Finn kept his questions about it to himself.

"You don't have to feed me, buddy." Poe sat down heavily on the end of the bed.

"We're back to 'buddy,' huh?" Finn said, keeping his tone pleasant.

"Well, you know. I call everyone buddy." Poe scrubbed a hand through his damp hair. He smiled faintly, but wasn't meeting Finn's eyes.

Finn decided to throw himself into the proverbial line of fire. He pulled Poe's one chair, a metal contraption older than the moon they were currently occupying, over to the bed and sat down, close enough his knees knocked against Poe's. Poe looked at him with wariness.

"Please," Finn said. "Will you talk to me? Are you okay?"

After a pause that felt longer than it probably was, Poe said, "That moon didn't even have a formal name in our databases. Those people didn't have a name, and outside of what we call them they never will." His voice carried sadness edged in anger. "Wouldn't have even known to look if we hadn't intercepted..." 

He trailed off, and Finn thought 'Ren' once before refusing to think it twice.

In his sleep, for the rest of his life, he'd see and smell the charred wound in the forest. Poe would have a similar memory, Finn knew.

Some things you carried forever, without anyone stating it, complaining about it, or purging it. He couldn't decide what, exactly, that was proof of.

"I could feel how hot the flames had burned. It wasn't just like Jakku, but close enough," he said.

Poe cleared his throat. "I hadn't remembered Jakku as well as I thought I did. Or after. But that site today." He looked altogether like he was near tears. 

Finn's chest felt too tight. He reached out and caught Poe's left hand. 

Poe looked down at Finn's hand on his like it was chimerical. "Anyway, guess there's something to be said for mild concussions."

"No," Finn said incredulously, though he knew Poe was trying to lighten the mood. "Do not seek out further head injuries." 

Finn excelled at combat and strategy and the kinds of chancy gambits that cropped up during uncontrolled conditions, but Poe thrilled to them, and there was a difference. However occasionally disconcerting it was to reconcile, the contemplative person who sat before him was the same guy who up until a few months ago was still eagerly undertaking perilous missions solo and vexing BB-8 with nonchalant queries about flying blindfolded and upside down.

Poe could be very quiet sometimes. His pulse thrummed beneath Finn's thumb. "When I stepped out of Lor San Tekka's tent and saw the First Order coming, I knew they would try to kill everyone in the village." 

Finn swallowed. "We virtually succeeded." 

It wouldn't subtract from his guilt but he could hope, rather without hope, that the woman (and child?) he'd let escape had lived. And Poe had lived. 

Poe tugged on his hand until their fingers were laced together. "You weren't responsible. You're not included in the 'they.'" 

Debatable. Finn wouldn't argue. "Neither are you," he said, and loathed himself for hitting the target so squarely.

"I led them there," Poe said.

Finn hated the matter of factness in his tone, as though the topic was a settled truth. "No, sorry. You get zero credit for the First Order's duplicitous spying and homicidal pillaging." 

He brushed his thumb over the tops of Poe's knuckles. It was grounding, somehow. It kept him from pulling Poe into his arms.

There were some things Finn believed he wasn't supposed to do -- wasn't supposed to want to do. Instead of saying or doing anything humiliating, he said, "After we meet with General Organa, we go back tomorrow with a larger team. If there's time and she lets us, I mean. I wager there is and she will. We do the proper recon, we find everything we meant to find today. We leave a marker. We honor the dead."

Poe stared at him. His hand gripped Finn's like a vice. "That's." He blinked. "What I was about to suggest. If you were up for it."

"I'm absolutely up for it," Finn said, cringing inside at how enthusiastic he sounded, like it was the offsite party of the century they were discussing. He coughed. "I think it's a good idea," he said with what was hopefully a deal more dignity.

"Who or what do we think might have buried the remains?" Poe asked, giving voice to something else that had troubled Finn since they found the site.

"Don't know," Finn said. "We should probably investigate that tomorrow."

"We should." 

"Might not have been the Order either. We've been assuming-- But with the state of things being what they are--" Finn exhaled.

"If it's not the First Order, it wouldn't necessarily be surprising." Poe rubbed his eye. "But also not comforting." 

"No." 

"I shouldn't have made you leave when we left."

"You needed to leave."

"What I needed wasn't relevant."

"You're allowed to say no." Finn tiptoed his way to a conclusion. "You are not superhuman. Everyone has a limit. Not like I was anxious to stay in the ruins myself."

"It was a waste of resources, going and ditching the mission. Not to mention just, stars, just shitty, and I dragged you into it."

"Yeah, you're the worst. Try to keep the bravery to a minimum, would you?" 

Poe ducked his head, smiled.

The thought flitted through Finn's mind: We're at war. Just as quickly he amended: I've never not been at war. So many alive tonight have never known peace. They, we, deserve to live without war, and be remembered.

Poe had looked up. He knew what Finn was thinking, Finn was positive. 

He cocked his head. "All right. Say it."

Poe didn't apologize, but his tone was sympathetic. "We're going to have to go back to the village on Jakku someday."

"Yes," Finn sighed. "We are. A proper holiday."

"No."

"No. But proper, nonetheless." Respect needed to be paid. It wouldn't erase the past, but it was the right thing to do anyway. 

Finn considered Poe's hand in his. He could not begin to describe how it made him feel. He opted to say, "We don't know where I'm from either." 

Finn had said this aloud before; it never failed to sound to his ears like he was talking about someone else, some other refugee. Poe was watching him steadily, like he understood Finn wasn't finished. "So. Someday I will want to investigate that." 

"Just say when," Poe said. He hadn't pressed before and wouldn't until Finn was ready, a small thing Finn knew that for whatever reason helped. 

"There're a few other in-progress predicaments to clean up first," Finn said. "Shouldn't take more than a couple more years. You know."

"Yeah," Poe said slowly, "I know." A beat. "Thank you. For asking if I was okay."

"Sure," Finn said. 

"By the way," Poe said, with the slightest bit of side eye, "I'm not the only bad influence on this base."

"No?"

"Your whole crazy defying-a-murderous-regime-to-rescue-strangers go-in-without-a-plan figure-it-out-on-the-fly high standards, damn. It's rough being any kind of soldier trying to follow you."

"Strangers? Hey. Friends," Finn said, feigning offense. "Best friends." He could do that judgmental thing with the eyebrow as ably as Poe could. "Jealous I look better in those orange flightsuits than you do, or that Rey lets me use her lightsaber sometimes?" 

"No, no, what's wrong with using an old fashioned blaster? And I look no less fantastic in those jumpsuits than you do and you know it." 

Finn chose not to confirm this, despite its accuracy.

Poe was giving him space to go, he realized. Poe's fingertips eased across his palm. Every fingertip left a separate trail, a spark.

How do I measure what we are? Finn thought. 

The ticking of an old chrono on the desk was muffled by a pile of socks. The toe of a sock matching one Poe was wearing stuck out like a silly green tongue. Now _that's_ a distraction, Finn thought, even while he was reaching for Poe's hand again. 

The sheer vulnerability on Poe's face made Finn feel as though anything he himself did next would be reckless. Was he rushing away from or running toward something? How could he be lonely for someone sitting right there?

Poe flexed his hand open under Finn's touch; Finn's attention span caught back up with his own actions the instant Poe took a sharper breath. Gently! Finn yelped at himself, and loosened his hold.

He thought about how often Poe was careful with him. It might have rankled, some other time; it might've seemed like Poe didn't trust him not to break. It occurred to him that perhaps Poe was just gentle, when he wasn't doing barrel rolls at 23 G's or teaching recruits how to blow things up for the greater good or risking his life for others, over and over, like it was the best way he could contribute. 

It occurred to Finn that what he saw in Poe's eyes sometimes, when Finn had done something well, wasn't a figment of his daydreaming. 

And oh, Finn wanted to be the good man Poe thought he was.

Poe was waiting for him. Looking at Poe he felt, suddenly, quite clear-headed. He knew Poe would always wait. What he saw in Poe's eyes now might not be wishing thinking. It seemed to be a generous sort of permission -- very Poe-like. 

Finn leaned forward and kissed him. 

Poe startled, but didn't lean or push away. Both of his hands were wrapped around Finn's right hand like Finn was keeping him from lifting off through the quarter's cement roof, or like he was tethering Finn to earth. Finn was willing to deem either or both views equally viable.

More to the point, Poe kissed back. What started gentle stayed that way, until they broke apart, a mutually decided pause, and Poe rested his forehead against Finn's.

"Hi," Poe said, sounding dazed.

Finn almost smiled. The kiss had been tender, not quite tentative -- Poe's mouth softer than expected, a contrast notable since he hadn't shaved in three days -- and warm. Finn could not have imagined such warmth.

"Hi," he echoed, for lack of anything more eloquent to contribute.

Heat began to pool lower when Poe slid his right hand down the side of Finn's neck and around the back of his head, a guiding gesture that led Finn onto the bed beside him. Poe had his left hand on Finn's waist, his fingers grazing skin so lightly it was nearly painful. Finn found the pulse in the hollow of Poe's throat and refused to be denied the sensation of it beneath his thumb again, his fingers fanned against Poe's collarbone. 

"Finn," Poe whispered, voice cracking on the syllable as his mouth brushed against his.

I feel it too, Finn wanted to say, but it was so much simpler without words.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Shout out to goshemily for being super nice about an extremely early draft of this.
> 
> \- I believe 10000% in a Force-sensitive Finn, whether or not he identifies as such yet in this little au of mine.
> 
> \- Topps used [this split-second of film](http://oscar-isaac.com/photos/displayimage.php?album=394&pid=27576#top_display_media) for one of their tfa trading cards, and my O.o about it continues undiminished.
> 
> \- um yeah part of that very last line is...intentional :)))


End file.
